THAILAND

HELPING REFUGEE FAMILIES AND CHILDREN IN THAILAND

Every year, 1,000s of Pakistani families – many of
them Christian – face persecution and even death
for their beliefs.

They fear the death penalty for blasphemy and
regularly face danger as churches are bombed
and many are jailed.

Human rights experts agree that
the blasphemy law is used to settle personal
grudges and evoked by extremists to murder
Christians.

Pakistani Christians are put into criminal
jails alongside
common criminals.

CHRIS ROGERS, THE TIMES

NOWHERE TO RUN, NOWHERE TO HIDE

This intense persecution has forced thousands
of families to flee Pakistan and seek refuge
elsewhere. For some, the quickest, cheapest
way to escape is to take the 5-hour direct flight
to Thailand and hope that the United Nations
refugee agency will protect them and help their
case for asylum. But the welcome they prayed
for has led to a life of destitution and jail.

Thailand hasn’t signed up to the UN Refugee
Convention so asylum seekers get no help or
protection; instead they are trapped in a web
of bureaucracy and hostility. After their 90-day
tourist visa runs out, the police arrest them as
illegal immigrants.

SAMUEL’S STORY

Forced to flee Pakistan after extremists
threatened to kill him and his family, Samuel and
his family found their way to Thailand.

After his tourist visa expired, he registered as
an asylum seeker but the UN’s refugee office
told him it would take many years to process his
application.

In the meantime, he can’t work, doesn’t speak
the language and his funds have run out - leaving
him and his family destitute.

‘We have changed Samuel’s name to protect him and his family’

He escaped to Thailand –
and assumed he’d be safe

So Samuel was jailed as an illegal immigrant -
despite being a registered asylum-seeker.

Samuel’s wife and children were arrested
with him and held in the detention centre, but
their children became sick with diarrhoea and
vomiting from the insanitary conditions of the
cell and drinking water. They are still there.

Despite this, Samuel, like other refugees,
dare not return home, and are determined to
continue to seek asylum outside Pakistan for the
sake of their faith and their children.

OUR CAMPAIGN IN THAILAND

Jubilee Campaign have campaigned for
human rights in Pakistan for decades. In
just one example, we defended Salamat
Masih, an 11-year old boy, accused of writing
blasphemous words on the walls of a mosque.

The child couldn’t read or write but faced
death by hanging. After a court appearance,
a gunman opened re in a dramatic drive-by
shooting and he was hit in the hand.

We lobbied intensely for Salamat
and raised his case by name at
the UN in 1994.

The following year the case
against him was dropped and he
left the country.